A Slow Year by Ian Bogost

[treismac]

Has anyone actually played this game? I can't find a single review for his art game online, only blurbs seem to exist. If the game was a $5 download I'd give it a try, but for $20 I am wary of purchasing an art game that might not give me an equivalent exchange of enrichment (however you wanna quantify that) for my money.

http://www.bogost.com/games/game_poems.shtml

[portnoyd]

Stupid hipster bullshit... in cart form!

Well, cart form is you have $500 to blow on a homebrew.

[TheRedEye]

It's not really a "game," if you are looking for a new game to play this isn't it. If you want a weird piece of memorabilia done by a pretty notable game industry person to experience once and then kind of keep on your shelf, that's really what this is all about. "Poem" is pretty accurate, it's too hard to describe the gameplay details.

[treismac]

"Poem" is pretty accurate, it's too hard to describe the gameplay details.

So you have played or... ahem... experienced A Slow Year then rather than just reading about it or watching a video about it?

[TheRedEye]

That is correct, Ian showed it to me at a GDC or something (Ed Fries was there too, while he was knee deep in Halo 2600). It has some awesome effects and is a really cool little experience, but I don't know that I'd play it more than a couple times.

[treismac]

My curiosity eats at me in regards to A Slow Year; it really does. However, not being a particularly wealthy man, I fear that buyers remorse would kick me in the teeth after picking the game up. If it were but only $5...

[Berserker]

It's probably better to think of something like this in terms of a "curiosity" rather than "product which must return satisfaction equivalent to dollar value". Make a note to pick it up when you have an extra 20 bucks kicking around instead of dipping into money you actually need, if money's tight. Then you'll be able to enjoy it for whatever it is instead of feeling ripped off.

[treismac]

I finally "experienced" A Slow Year at a video game themed exhibit called Game Change at the Jepson Center Art Museum. It was interesting. Nothing mind blowing, but interesting none the less. All artsy-hype aside, I think Jetpack Basketball (http://messhof.com/jetpack-basketball/) was a much more enriching experience- an experience that is downloadable, by the way. :wink 2:

http://messhof.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/jetpackb.png